Slow Dancing in a Burning Room
by young for eternity
Summary: One shot. Jim realizes he's a moron... a moron with a bad haircut. Pre The Job.


Just so we're clear. NBC owns The Office. John Mayer owns "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room." I own myself and this one-shot. Woo for one-shots written at 1:17 in the morning!

**Slow Dancing in a Burning Room**

Jim never saw himself as a jerk. Sure, he had jerk-like moments… Dwight could vouch him for that. But he never thought he could be a jerk to _women_. He grew up in a house where women were queens and should be treated with respect. He treated Pam like garbage… _Pam_. His best friend. And now Karen. He dated Karen simply because she was there. She was a replacement person. She was the replacement for Pam. Jim kind of hated himself for it. Why date someone if the feeling wasn't 100 percent mutual?

**It's not a silly little moment**  
**It's not the storm before the calm**  
**This is the deep and dying breath of**  
**This love we've been working on**

Sometimes, whenever Jim was bored at the office, he would sneak glances at Pam out of the corner of his eye and wonder if she was thinking of him. The last time he did, Roy came in and Jim got pepper sprayed in the face by Dwight. That was the end of that.

**Can't seem to hold you like I want to**  
**So I can feel you in my arms**  
**Nobody's gonna come and save you**  
**We pulled too many false alarms**

Karen was the one who suggested he cut his hair for the corporate job. He didn't like it. In the back of his mind, he could hear the combination of himself and Pam saying, _Wow… you could pass for Dwight's cousin. "Hi, my name is Jim. I'm an accountant."_

**We're going down**  
**And you can see it too**  
**We're going down**  
**And you know that we're doomed**  
**My dear, we're slow dancing in a burning room**

The night before the interview, Jim couldn't sleep. He tried counting sheep. He tried some yoga deep breathing exercise Karen told him about. He tried watching Conan O'Brien. He tried counting sheep doing yoga deep breathing exercises while on Conan O'Brien… but that thought made him laugh too much. Finally, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and ran his fingers through his hair… which he realized he now had less of. Jim missed his hair. He missed his Pam.

Karen rolled over and whispered, "Jim. It's one in the morning. You OK?"

Jim stood up and grabbed a pair of jeans from off the chair by the door. "I'm gonna go for a drive. Clear my head."  
**I was the one you always dreamed of**  
**You were the one I tried to draw**  
**How dare you say it's nothing to me**  
**Baby, you're the only light I ever saw**  
Jim drove around Scranton, thinking of all the things he could do. _Maybe if I take I-81 to I-83 and get on the Turnpike, I can drive to Philadelphia and get a cheese steak. Mmm. Cheese steak._ The entire time he drove Scranton, he thought about Pam… and cheese steaks. _Maybe someday Pam and I will go to Philadelphia and get cheese steaks_, he thought. _I don't need that job in New York._

**I'll make the most of all the sadness**  
**You'll be a bitch because you can**  
**You try to hit me just to hurt me**  
**So you leave me feeling dirty**  
**Because you can't understand**  
**We're going down**  
**And you can see it too**  
**We're going down**  
**And you know that we're doomed**

Next thing he knew, Jim was in Pam's neighborhood. _Great, now I'm Jim the accountant-slash-stalker._ He slowly drove by Pam's house. _You dumbass, she's not going to be awake_.

But Pam _was_ awake. She was in her kitchen, wearing a pink fuzzy robe and her hair up in a messy bun. She was leaning against the island in her kitchen, a glass of water behind her and a gold medal from the office games in her hands. And she looked like she was singing.

Jim recognized what Pam was singing, because he was singing it too:

"_**My dear, we're slow dancing in a burning room"**_

Jim put his car in drive and drove back on the main road. He missed her. He missed the fun they had. He missed things like the office games. He missed the pranks they pulled on Dwight. But maybe Pam didn't want to miss those things anymore.

**Go cry about it, why don't you?**  
**Go cry about it, why don't you?**  
**Go cry about it, why don't you?**  
**My dear, we're slow dancing in a burning room**

The good guy in Jim that had been suppressed for the past couple of months came out._ C'mon man. Karen deserves better. Hell, Pam deserves better. You didn't go to her freaking art show, the one _no one_ went to. You were her best friend and now you're just an ass._

Jim had to pull over. He placed his hands on the top of the steering wheel and leaned his forehead against it. It was too much thinking at 1:32 in the morning right before the biggest interview of his life. He let out a sigh, sat up straight, and started driving back to the apartment with the replacement woman. He had to make things right.

**Don't you think we oughta know by now?**  
**Don't you think we shoulda learned somehow?**


End file.
